Linkage
A couple of unrelated links:
Potential breakthrough in AIDS treatment.
This one is so cool I'm gonna try summarizing it. There's a naturally-occuring rare mutation that make some humans practicaly immune to AIDS. German doctors were treating an American citizen in Germany who had both AIDS and leukemia, and who had failed the first round of leukemia treatment. The next stage recommended was bone marrow transplant. His doctor knew about the immunity mutation and so located a bone marrow donor who had it.
600 days later, the man has no signs of the AIDS virus in him. To all appearances, he's cured. Which is amazingly cool and miraculous all by itself.
This is not a practical treatment in this form,'cause full bone marrow transplants have a 30% mortality rate, and AIDS with drug treatment for the symptoms has a better survival rate than that. But they're hoping to make an injectable gene therapy form of the treatment that would be not only reliable, but cheap and easy enough to administer that it could be used in the third world, where AIDS is still killing millions. That's still just a theory, but ... wow! So awesome. Article has lots more details, go read the source. It'll make you smile!
The Washington Post's survey on their electoral coverage. An interesting piece. Mostly I just want to give props to the Post for doing the survey and publishing the results. It's nice to see a news organization examining its own biases.
Potential breakthrough in AIDS treatment.
This one is so cool I'm gonna try summarizing it. There's a naturally-occuring rare mutation that make some humans practicaly immune to AIDS. German doctors were treating an American citizen in Germany who had both AIDS and leukemia, and who had failed the first round of leukemia treatment. The next stage recommended was bone marrow transplant. His doctor knew about the immunity mutation and so located a bone marrow donor who had it.
600 days later, the man has no signs of the AIDS virus in him. To all appearances, he's cured. Which is amazingly cool and miraculous all by itself.
This is not a practical treatment in this form,'cause full bone marrow transplants have a 30% mortality rate, and AIDS with drug treatment for the symptoms has a better survival rate than that. But they're hoping to make an injectable gene therapy form of the treatment that would be not only reliable, but cheap and easy enough to administer that it could be used in the third world, where AIDS is still killing millions. That's still just a theory, but ... wow! So awesome. Article has lots more details, go read the source. It'll make you smile!
The Washington Post's survey on their electoral coverage. An interesting piece. Mostly I just want to give props to the Post for doing the survey and publishing the results. It's nice to see a news organization examining its own biases.